When Shawn McIntyre was forced out of his crippled fire truck on January 18, 2003, he was facing every firefighter's worst nightmare.

Houses around him were ablaze, his crew was in mortal danger, and now they would have to tackle Canberra's worst ever fires on foot.

What unfolded in the ensuing few hours undoubtedly made his Bravo 7 crew heroes of the 2003 disaster.

And 10 years later, the memories still haunt the veteran firefighter.

He still struggles to grapple with the deaths of four people and the destruction of 500 homes.

While he says some of his colleagues are scarred by what they did, and couldn't, do.

Mr McIntyre was the first frontline fire officer to be interviewed by the ABC in the hours immediately after the January 2003 fires, and he subsequently gave chilling evidence to the coronial inquiry.

Crew bravery

On January 18, Shawn McIntyre had been the senior officer at Chisholm fire station in Canberra's south.

For more than a week authorities and residents had been anxious about the fires burning through national parks west of the city, but no-one expected them to leap into the suburbs with the ferocity that they did on that day.

By 1:40pm, Mr McIntyre's Bravo 7 crew was dispatched to help stop fires reaching homes in Duffy on Canberra's western fringe.

It was an area Mr McIntyre knew well because he lived just streets away with his young family.

"The fire was expected to be in the vicinity in two hours ... and my appliance was patrolling the suburbs for spot fires," Mr McIntyre told the ABC the day after the fires.

"Approximately half an hour later the fire reached Warragamba Avenue and Eucumbene Drive."

Unbearable heat

"When we arrived on to Warragamba Avenue, it was like a black blizzard, complete darkness with flashes of red. We could see the pines with flames leaping 5 to 10 metres above those," Mr McIntyre recalled the next morning.

He later testified conditions in his vehicle were unbearable.

"I could see pines probably 50 metres off the road alight, with a flame height of somewhere between 20 and 30 metres," he told Coroner Maria Doogan.

"The radiant heat from those made it very difficult for me to turn to speak to the driver.

"There was no thought of getting out and doing anything. In my mind, it was imperative to keep going."

Then the fires reached the first homes, the Bravo 7 crew's priority shifted to protecting lives.

"At that stage, survival was our instinct and we had to retreat to a safer point a couple of streets back," he said.

But their vehicle proved no safe refuge. As the firefront started swallowing up homes, their truck just stopped.

A design fault (since rectified in the city's firefighting fleet), meant the vehicle's air intake system caught fire when it sucked in superheated air and embers.

It was a vulnerability that claimed three trucks that afternoon and put the lives of many firefighters at unacceptable risk.

Like 'Armageddon'

When the pumper truck broke down on Somerset Street in Duffy, Mr McIntyre was forced to improvise his assault on the flames.

His crew had to drag heavy lengths of hose on foot through the streets, but just when they needed it most, water pressure failed.

With houses now on fire around them, and like a military commander rallying his troops before battle, Mr McIntyre gathered his crew for a desperate briefing.

"I told them to keep calm, to work calmly and to conserve their energy and to dig in for the long haul," he told the coronial inquiry.

"I knew we would be there for a long time and there probably wouldn't be any assistance."

From the roof of his own house, the firefighter surveyed the terrifying scene.

"It was awful. My neighbours' houses were alight. Just Armageddon," he recalled.

Mr McIntyre later commandeered a neighbour's pushbike, to coordinate firefighting efforts and check on the safety of residents.

He and several fire crews continued working in the suburb for hours, helping protect residents, and stopping the spread of fire to unburnt homes.

Looking back

In the intervening decade, many emergency workers have struggled with the decisions made that day.

While several inquiries probed the official firefighting response, the officers closest to the firefront have battled much more personal questions.

Ten years on, Mr McIntyre says he is very comfortable and satisfied with what they did.

That's not to say that the result was anywhere near what he'd hoped for, what was expected.

"Certainly there are a lot of people that carry memories, scars, and have difficulties in certain ways of getting back into the normal routine of work and life," he said.

But he feels more for the residents, most of whom were totally unprepared for the scale of the natural disaster.

"We were in perilous situations ourselves, trained professionals with some equipment to do the job we were trained to do," he said.

"People that weren't in a position to know what was happening, to know what to do, and where to go - I was convinced that there would've been a lot more fatalities on that day.

"As saddened and disappointed as we were to hear of those four people that had died, I was convinced on the day that there would've been tens, maybe hundreds of people injured, and many more than four killed."

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